Present Climate Conditions

Halloween Climatology in the Twin Cities

Pumpkins in the 1991 Halloween Blizzard Courtesy: Star Tribune

Halloween is typically a time of crunchy leaves on the ground, a bit of chill in the air, and lots of candy. High temperatures in the Twin Cities are generally in the 40s and 50s. It is more common for the daily high on Halloween to be in the 60s than in the 30s. 70s tend to be rare, with only eight Halloween high temperatures being 70 degrees or above or about one in eighteen years. The warmest Halloween on record was 83 degrees in 1950, with one of the coldest one year later with a high of 30 in 1951. The coldest Halloween maximum temperature was a bone-chilling 26 degrees back in 1873. The last twenty years have had some balmy Halloween afternoons with a 71 degrees in 2000, and some quite cool ones as well with 35 degrees for a high temperature in 2016. There hasn't been a Halloween washout since 1997.

Measurable precipitation has occurred on Halloween only 26% of the time in the Twin Cities, or 38 times out of 145 years. The most rain recorded was in 1979 with .78 inches. In 1991 .85 inches of precipitation fell, which was snow. In spite of the 1991 Halloween Blizzard, measurable snow on Halloween is about as rare as getting a full-sized candy bar in your trick or treat bag. Since 1872 there's been enough snow to measure only six times: .6 in 1884, .2 in 1885, 1.4 in 1932, .4 in 1954, .5 in 1995 and of course 8.2 inches with the Halloween Blizzard of 1991. Thus there has been measurable snow on only 4% of the days.